Back in the Salsa

The last time Fred Lewis launched a salsa business, he did it with a $3,000 loan from his mother.

He cooked up the salsa in a vat in his kitchen sink, where he put a fan in the window to blow out the onion aroma. The secret ingredient that made the salsa stand out was black-eyed peas. At first, he sold the salsa out of the trunk of his car.

That was 22 years ago. The Clearwater-based company Lewis founded, Little Freddy's Gourmet Foods, grew to $1.5 million in annual sales and 10 employees before he sold it in 2001.